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A Little TMI, but what the heck, right?

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KayentaMoenkopi:
SO it's just easier on me to have this conversation once. my appologies to the uninterested. :P

Whenever it was last week that I was put into the hospital [Thursday night]...and they ran all those tests[Cat Scan, MRI, thyroid panel, Blood sugar, EKG, chest x-ray, blood pressure, other blood work, cholesterol, stroke enzymes, iron levels]...and found absolutely nothing wrong with me...

They set me up with a follow up exam from a doctor. And I went there today and she tells me I have a B12 deficiency but my iron levels are fine. That blood test from the ER takes a good two days for results to be obtained and I was discharged from the hospital before they came in. She gave me a B12 shot...and ordered blood work in 4 weeks. And I will proceed from there. Pill supplements are ill advised IF this is a genetic inability to absorb B12 through the stomach, which given the history of my mother could well be the case. Due to the lack of low iron, this is also indicated and not indicative of a poor diet.

So...it seems this may be responsible for a number of issues that I have been experiencing:

Nerve problems like numbness or tingling, muscle weakness, and problems walking
Vision loss
Mental problems like depression, memory loss, or behavioral changes

I am told that for most people, treatment resolves the problem. But any nerve damage that happened due to the deficiency could be permanent.

What can cause this?

Atrophic gastritis, in which your stomach lining has thinned
Pernicious anemia, which makes it hard for your body to absorb vitamin B12
Surgery that removed part of your stomach or small intestine, including weight loss surgery
Conditions affecting the small intestine, such as Crohn's disease, celiac disease, bacterial growth, or a parasite
Heavy drinking
Immune system disorders, such as Graves' disease or lupus
Long-term use of acid-reducing drugs. Stomach acids help break down animal proteins that have vitamin B12.
You can also get vitamin B12 deficiency if you're a vegan (meaning you don't eat any animal products, including meat, milk, cheese, and eggs) or a vegetarian who doesn't eat enough eggs or dairy products to meet your vitamin B12 needs.

Well she did mention pernicious anemia, which is the inability to absorb B12. The symptoms of that are:

weakness [yes]
headaches [yes]
chest pain [no]
weight loss [yes] 50 pounds in 3 months.
an unsteady gait [yes]
spasticity, which is stiffness and tightness in the muscles [yes]
peripheral neuropathy, which is numbness in the arms and legs [yes]
progressive lesions of the spinal cord [no]
memory loss [yes]

So after several years of being told nothing is wrong with me and I am just fine, but continued to feel like shit all the time...it is kind of a relief to have a lead for once.

Hopefully, as this is treatable, this will be what the issue is and I will finally get some relief.

So yeah, I am excited.

Becquerel:
I really hope that the issue gets solved for you, Kayenta. I know how frustrating it can be to know something is wrong with you but have providers keep telling you everything's fine. I'm trying to find out something as far as my own health is concerned as well and am wondering if my unsteady hands are just due to mental duress or something more sinister going on inside my body.

But at least you're finally being led in the right direction. I know you're probably stressed out due to the length of time it takes to get lab results back, but, sometimes you really can't get things done faster than that. Please remember that protocols must be followed in order to get accurate lab results and that sometimes facilities may not be equipped to handle certain labs, which requires them to be mailed out (taking more time). So hopefully they'll work with you just as well as you're working with them.

For the time being, just make sure you stay on top of the medicine that you've been given and changing your diet a little bit might improve your overall quality of life but might do little to help if it's really an inability to absorb B12. But if you find out you can't absorb it, then B12 shots are pretty easy to get taken care of in this day and age so I think your outlook would be good :)

But until then, no use sweating the small stuff. Stressing out over something you can't control (the wait) will just cause unnecessary damage to your body and psyche. While you wait, just make the most of your time and do what makes you happy.

Ѕhadow:
My Sister-in-law has anemia. She has to take iron pills for it and some other stuff.

Hopefully this will treat it and you can feel better. ^-^ Good luck. ~

Note irrelevant to topic: For those who like medical mysteries and sarcastic/funny people: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412142/

10/10

KayentaMoenkopi:
Thanks guys. I had the b12 shot today. And so four weeks of waiting for the new labs to be drawn.

near as I know, Pernicious anemia and anemia are two different things. one is an inability to absorb B12...like what they think I have, and the other is low level of iron...which I do not have.

others more versed in these matters might be able to shed more light on the differences.

anyway, bec...just keep investigating your health until they find something. People do not have issues for no reason. no matter how the tests come back fine fine fine.

Becquerel:
Anemia in general just means that there's something wrong with your blood. (coming from the prefix an- meaning without and the suffix -emia meaning blood) Usually, people use it as a general term to describe either low blood count or low iron levels. The word that comes either before or after it usually designates the specific issue. Like in Kayenta's potential case, Pernicious Anemia which inhibits gastric absorption of B12. Or sickle cell anemia, which causes the RBCs to take on a sickle shape as an evolutionary adaptation to the malarial parasite.

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